"Aaaah!"
A scream that poured out every ounce of strength could summon courage.
Virt Gold raised the Holy Sword high, frantically channeling all of his mana into it.
As the Holy Sword of Light came slashing down, it burst forth with a dazzling golden glare.
Within that blade-light, the sword's body swelled dramatically, lengthening to several meters in the blink of an eye, and—without the slightest resistance—it cleaved straight into the body of that tentacle!
By the time Virt realized it, the Holy Sword of Light had already pierced clean through, tearing open a horrifying wound across its body.
Foul, putrid slime gushed out of the wound, streaming to the ground and pooling into a puddle.
After being run through by this strike of his, the tentacle abruptly ceased all movement.
It lifted its tip, turning its eight-petaled maw toward Virt; the tongue within its mouth hissed "sss-sss," extending and retracting now and then.
Virt couldn't help but look up at it, the hands gripping his sword trembling faintly.
That strike a moment ago, when it had cleaved into the tentacle's body, had seemed to meet no resistance at all—as if it had simply "passed through" it.
But right now, as he tried to pull the sword free, he found that the Holy Sword of Light had become lodged within the tentacle's body, utterly impossible to extract.
This made his face grow paler and paler.
Amid this eerie standoff, the atmosphere in this passage grew increasingly fraught.
Behind Virt.
Robert had already turned back around, but as he watched the tentacle monster looming over them and Virt clutching the Holy Sword, he dared not so much as breathe.
He was terrified that if he made the slightest sound, it would become the fuse that set the tentacle into motion.
As for Emma, who was already behind the corner wall, although she held that "Golden Treasure Chest" card in her hand, even she herself felt that the "Golden Treasure Chest's" mental control would have no effect whatsoever on that tentacle.
Just as Virt had likewise pinned no hopes on "Forbidden Love."
Because it was truly hard to imagine that tentacle monster being bewitched by gold and romance.
Rather than use the "Golden Treasure Chest," summoning a Magic Guide Spirit or two to draw the tentacle monster's attention would be far more effective.
Emma's fingers flipped ceaselessly through several Magic Guide Cards.
But just like Robert, she too subconsciously did not want to shatter this motionless, deadlocked atmosphere.
"Squelch!"
All of a sudden.
When Virt exerted force once more, the Holy Sword of Light was abruptly wrenched free!
This instantaneous shift in the situation only filled him with even more panic.
The tentacle monster's body shuddered the very moment the Holy Sword of Light was pulled out.
The tongue in its mouth, nimble as a snake, suddenly shot out from between its lips, then suddenly drew back.
In this single extension and retraction—who knew what it was pondering—it still did not move.
But Virt was truly terrified.
The Holy Sword of Light, which had only just been pulled out, was raised by him once again.
The Holy Sword's radiance shot straight toward the heavens, golden light squeezing out through the cracks and illuminating a stretch of the void on the left side of the abyss.
"Aaaah!"
In his panic, Virt swung down another strike.
This time, his focus was sharper, and the Holy Sword's golden light was steadier as well.
But this strike came down as though cleaving onto cowhide, without the faintest trace of that earlier "penetrating" sensation.
Virt stared, wide-eyed, and discovered that on the tentacle monster's body there was merely one more scratch...
Two swings of the sword, two utterly different results.
Virt found this reality hard to accept; this time, the instant he withdrew the sword he slashed out again, then withdrew, slashed, withdrew, slashed once more...
His slashing grew faster and faster, yet the sword marks on the tentacle monster's body grew shallower and shallower.
In the end, even the wound left by his very first strike healed over perfectly.
Though the tentacle monster did not stir in the slightest, letting Virt swing his sword without pause, the pressure it radiated grew ever more intense.
"Aah——"
Virt closed his eyes and delivered one final slash.
This strike gathered nearly the entire strength of his body.
But that "penetrating" sensation from his first strike still failed to appear.
Instead, the tentacle monster's outer skin abruptly turned hard as steel.
The Holy Sword of Light struck against the tentacle monster's hide as if striking against steel, and the blade formed of gathered golden light shattered all at once.
The three-meter-long Holy Sword—at the very spot where the blade burst apart—broke!
Virt stared fixedly at the place his strike had landed, his shoulders slumping, gasping for breath.
This all-out final strike was now unable to leave even a mark upon the tentacle's skin.
Virt couldn't help but release his grip, letting the Holy Sword of Light dissolve into light.
His whole body subconsciously began to back away.
It was this single step backward.
The tentacle monster's tongue suddenly let out a hissing screech.
And the tentacle monster, which had stayed motionless all this time, thereupon began to move.
"Run!"
Robert suddenly roared out.
Virt only felt his wrist seized and yanked, his whole body tilting with the pull.
He turned with the motion and broke into a run.
Leaving his utterly defenseless back exposed to the tentacle monster.
A beam of light streaked past his side and landed between him and the tentacle monster.
The "Bronze Soldier," clad head to toe in bronze armor, took shape at lightning speed within the light.
The instant it materialized, the Bronze Soldier, obeying Emma's advance order, drew the bronze longsword at its waist and unleashed its one and only Ultimate Move against that terrifying tentacle monster—"Sweep"!
The "Sweep" that sweeps away a thousand armies.
Apart from shifting the attack's range from a "point" to a "plane," the "Sweep's" sole effect was "knockback"!
But the wind pressure released from the longsword was utterly incapable of budging the colossal tentacle monster.
The mere three-star "Bronze Soldier" could not bridge the gulf in rank, and its Ultimate Move's added effect produced not the slightest result before the tentacle monster.
But at the very least, through its own sacrifice it succeeded in stalling the tentacle for several seconds.
Those few seconds were enough for Robert to drag the somewhat soul-shaken Virt around the corner.
After that, as if repeating history, the three of them once again ran for their lives along this passage.
"Crunch, crunch."
The Bronze Soldier was chewed to pieces and swallowed.
Then, in the tentacle's belly, it dissolved into specks of mana light.
The "Bronze Soldier" Magic Guide Card in Emma's hand turned gray.
"Don't just stand there—summon your Magic Guide Spirits!"
Her face paling, she hastily cried out.
Virt and Robert fished out their respective Magic Guide Cards and began to summon.
Two Magic Guide Spirits appeared behind the three of them and, steeled with the resolve to "sacrifice" themselves, charged at the pursuing tentacle.
But this tentacle was larger and thicker than that first one, and the two Magic Guide Spirits could not serve as an obstacle at all.
It twisted its body and rolled straight over the top of the two Magic Guide Spirits.
In just a little over ten seconds, it had caught up with Virt and the other two.
The eight-petaled maw at the tentacle's tip yawned violently open.
Virt, running at the rear, instinctively turned to look and was so terrified by those densely packed fangs that he screamed in alarm.
He abruptly burst into a speed never seen before, but the sudden acceleration sent his foot stamping right onto Robert's heel.
Robert instantly stumbled.
Virt couldn't steady himself and slammed headlong into Robert's back.
Had Robert's footing not been steady enough, the two of them would already have been tumbling across the ground.
But even so, the two of them were forced to slow down.
A pitch-black shadow suddenly came slanting down upon them.
At some unknown moment, the tentacle had appeared directly above the two of them, its eight-petaled giant maw swaying left and right, as if deliberating whom to devour first.
Virt and Robert sped up again beneath the shroud of that shadow, yet they could not open up even a sliver of distance.
"Virt, what do we do?"
Robert had already realized that he very likely would not be able to escape.
Virt's face was deathly pale, and he too was at a loss for what to do.
"The Dungeon Escape Device!"
Emma, running up ahead, suddenly spun around, pointing at the watch-like "Dungeon Escape Device" on her wrist, and shouted at the top of her voice: "Trigger it manually!"
Only then did Robert and Virt remember that they still had the "Dungeon Escape Device."
The two of them were instantly overjoyed and immediately stirred up their mana in an attempt to trigger it.
Manually triggering the "Dungeon Escape Device" was, after all, better than being forced to trigger it after being swallowed.
As for whether they'd be mocked for it afterward?
The two of them had no spare attention to spend on such thoughts.
But just as Robert reached out and pressed his "Dungeon Escape Device," the view at the corner of his eye suddenly went pitch-black.
He whipped his head around and discovered, to his shock, that his close friend, who had been running just behind and to one side of him, had vanished into thin air.
Instinctively.
Robert, his heart gripped with dread, lifted his gaze—and sure enough, from within the tentacle's clamped-shut eight-petaled maw, he saw his close friend's two feet!
"Virt!"
He froze in his tracks at once and let out a heart-rending wail.
Over there, Emma, who had been about to trigger her own "Dungeon Escape Device," immediately halted as well.
Their understanding of the "Dungeon Escape Device's" mechanism was, in truth, not deep enough.
Seeing that even after Virt had been clamped in the tentacle's mouth the "Dungeon Escape Device" still had not triggered, they nearly believed that Virt's "Dungeon Escape Device" was broken!
In their panic and disarray.
Robert, grasping at straws in his desperation, yanked out several other cards left behind by Vlad, but the only thing he could currently summon was the three-star "Blood Mother Bat," which could do nothing to change the situation.
What's more, the cooldown on Normal Summoning had not yet elapsed!
At the moment of utter despair.
Robert's vision suddenly swam, and he glimpsed a black shadow flash above the tentacle.
For an instant, he thought he was seeing a hallucination born of sheer despair.
But immediately afterward, that black shadow launched an attack at the spot just behind the tentacle's mouth.
An abruptly elongated demon claw clenched into a fist and smashed down with the full power of "Death Claw"!
"Skreee——"
A tearing shriek suddenly erupted from within the tentacle.
The eight-petaled maw clamping Virt thereby flew open and, as if retching, spat out the desperately struggling Virt.
Robert, utterly heedless of the slime dripping from above, rushed forward to catch Virt's body.
Virt barely managed to land, then hurriedly braced himself against the wall and vomited without cease.
After the tentacle had clamped him in its mouth, although it had not sprayed out any corrosive fluid, the rank, fishy slime coating its entire mouth had nauseated him to the very extreme.
Extreme nausea compounded with extreme terror made for a double dose of—vomiting!
At this moment, even though Virt's whole body was smeared with slime and his vomit reeked foully, Robert still forcibly seized his hand and, ignoring his resistance, dragged him backward.
"It's Dark's Magic Guide Spirit!"
Emma's voice, brimming with joy, reached Robert's ears.
That crucial name finally gave him a sliver of a sense of safety.
"Dark's come to save us!" Robert exclaimed in delighted surprise.
"Urgh!"
Virt vomited even more violently.
But amid their delight, Robert and Emma did not let down their guard.
The tentacle's might was plain for all to see; if all that had come was that four-star Devimon, they would, they feared, still be unable to escape their doom.
Only when Devimon dropped down from atop the tentacle's head and stood tall with its back to them did the two of them notice that there was yet another Magic Guide Spirit at its side.
It was something they had never seen before—a sphere, black as ink, without a single flaw anywhere upon it!
Across the surface of the sphere, only a single wisp of divine light flowed, lending it the air of a living thing.
Then, to their astonishment, the two of them saw Devimon actually take two steps back, pushing that sphere forward to the front!
"Is that one also Dark's Magic Guide Spirit?" Robert couldn't help but ask.
Emma watched tensely and only subconsciously replied: "How would I know?"
Of course there was no way they could have known.
After all, Rose had never taken part in any event other than in-class matches.
Yet the number of times she had entered the laboratory was basically the same as Diana's, and although her tally of transmutations fell slightly short owing to the gap in credits, it was impossible that she had come away with nothing.
Besides the "Mobius Bug," Rose also possessed an "[Aurora Moon Rabbit]"—likewise an exceedingly rare Magic Guide Spirit.
And in fact, even Dark knew little of the details concerning Rose's Magic Guide Spirits.
Therefore, it was all the more impossible for Devimon to know just what was so formidable about this "Mobius Bug."
It had merely followed Dark's order and ferried the "Mobius Bug" over.
If the "Mobius Bug" really could hold back that tentacle, then it would carry out the next order—return at once!
That first tentacle, though wounded, had not fully withdrawn; it still lay in wait at the mouth of the passage over there, biding its time.
Once Devimon was no longer holding the front line, Dark and his two companions would not be entirely safe either.
Sending the "Mobius Bug" over here was already the greatest possible display of goodwill.
How to cope from here on out.
still had to rest upon the judgment of Virt and his two companions.
If everything were solved for them, then this dungeon would lose the very meaning of an "adventure."
...
Devimon once again retreated a few steps, putting as much distance as it could between itself and the "Mobius Bug."
And it was at this very moment that the tentacle, which had taken its punch full-on, finally came to its senses.
"Hissss——"
After loosing a single menacing screech, the tentacle paid no heed at all to the "Mobius Bug" barring its way and, with a gaping maw, lunged straight at the Devimon behind it!
But just as it was about to cross over the "Mobius Bug" from above, a seven-colored halo immediately blossomed forth from that pitch-black sphere!
The halo, like a "Mobius strip," had only a single side.
Centered on the "Mobius Bug," it slowly revolved, spreading outward into an immense force field.
Once one entered the range of this force field, it was as if sinking deep into a quagmire.
Whether physical impact or mana impact, all of it would be absorbed by the force field.
In the end it was converted into pure energy, circulating and flowing across the surface of the halo.
No sooner had the tentacle charged in than it abruptly felt its strength draining away, its whole body going limp—so frightening that it instantly recoiled.
Above the "Mobius Bug's" head, a "1" quietly surfaced.
That was the number representing the "Energy Scale."
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